Generally described, call forwarding is a feature of some telephony switching systems that redirects, or diverts, calls to a different destination than the intended recipient's phone number. The forwarded destination is typically a phone number where the recipient is available. Unfortunately, call forwarding technology has many shortcomings.
Non-telephony devices, such as laptops, tablets, etc., which are not physically configured to receive a subscriber identity module (“SIM”) card and lack a wired telephony connection, are unable to receive forwarded calls using the current technology. Although non-telephony devices are typically connected to a non-telephony network, such as WiFi, these non-telephony devices cannot receive or initiate calls through a mobile carrier network that relies on SIM cards for authentication. Moreover, non-telephony devices cannot call out to a telephony device that is connected to a public switched telephone network (“PSTN”). It should be understood that a “non-telephony device” is a computing device, such as a laptop, tablet, or other portable computing device that is not physically configured to receive a SIM card to receive or initiate calls through a mobile carrier network, and is not connected to a PSTN.
Another problem with existing call forwarding technology is that service at the intended recipient's device or phone number is disrupted because simultaneous ringing of both the intended recipient's phone number and the forwarded destination phone number is unsupported. The previous solutions also fail to enable multiple device alerting and selective rule-based routing to multiple devices based on a subscriber's preferences. Consequently, there are many drawbacks to existing call forwarding technology.